03/22/1999 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Clearwater Creek 3rd Addn. Comprehensive Plan Amendment, Rezone to PDO PDO Development Plan March 22, 1999 page 6 Open Space, Greenways, Parks and Trails The plan includes approximately 70 acres of open space, which is about 43% of the gross acreage. The open space includes 61.7 acres in greenways as well as 8.4 acres of parkland. The 8.4 acres of parkland consist of a 5.5 -acre central park area and 2.9 acres of trails. This is about 1.6 miles of trails. The trails allow the public access to the large open space areas and contribute greatly to promoting the greenway corridor concept. The 5.5 -acre park and all the trail corridors (15 feet wide) will be dedicated to the City as parkland. The majority of the open space lands should be owned by a homeowners' association A tree plan for the streets will be required. There are some forested areas on the site, though most of the site is not wooded. The optimal situation may be to avoid disturbing the trees. However, that would leave severely restrict development because a significant proportion is in wetlands (21 % of the site). A tree plan will be required which will be worked out between the developer and City staff City staff also will discuss with the developer ways to restore previously impacted wetlands and means to encourage better soil and seeding methods. The area notated "greenway E" was created after discussion with staff on open space. The resulting buffer around the wetland isn't large enough to provide an enforceable buffer. Staff appreciates the developer's cooperation. However, we recommend eliminating this as open space and simply using a typical drainage easement over the wetland. The wetland will then be within platted lots with an easement over it. A buffer detail for the strip of land between Otter Lake Rd. and Lot 4 Block 12 should be provided. Open Space Protection: We are applying aspects of the City's Preservation Development program to this project. However, the Clearwater Creek 3rd Addn. project was well underway before we had established the Preservation Development program. The goal for the Preservation Development program is to have a permanent conservation easements over the open space held by a third party. The Minnesota Land Trust is an entity created specifically to hold conservation easements and we are working with them to design the program. We have heard from the Land Trust about this project. The open spaces as designed do not meet their criteria for permanent easements. The primary issue is that there is little if